1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to the manufacturing of hearing aids, and more particularly, to the alignment of undetailed and detailed surface models of 3D ear impressions.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
The development of accurate and robust alignment algorithms for 3D surfaces is a fundamental task with numerous applications in different fields such as computer vision, manufacturing processes (e.g., tolerance inspection of machined parts) and robotics, and has been widely investigated in the literature. Examples of recent work in this field, with particular application to hearing aides, include: U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20070058829, entitled “Method and Apparatus for the Rigid and Non-Rigid Registration of 3D Shapes”, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, and A. Zouhar, G. Unal. T. Fang, G. Slabaugh, H. Xie, and F. McBagonluri, “Anatomically-Aware, Automatic, and Fast Registration of 3D Ear Impression Models,” Proceedings 3DPVT'06, 2006, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
In A. Zouhar, G. Unal, T. Fang, C. Slabaugh, H. Xie, and F. McBagonluri, “Anatomically-Aware, Automatic, and Fast Registration of 3D Ear Impression Models,” Proceedings 3DPVT'06, 2006, a fully automatic registration framework of 3D ear impression models represented in the point cloud domain was presented. However, this method is limited to the registration of raw (i.e., undetailed) ear impression models. In U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20070058829, a rigid registration method between undetailed and detailed ear impression models with an implicit surface registration was presented. However, this algorithm cannot be conveniently applied to surfaces represented explicitly.
Accordingly, there is exists a need for a generalized, automatic and fast rigid registration method between undetailed and detailed ear impression models.